Program Information

For thirteen years after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, Marc Antony and Caesar’s nephew Octavian circled around each other seeking ultimate power in the Roman Empire. The issue was decided at Actium.

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Transcript

Lead: For thirteen years after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, Marc Antony and Caesar’s nephew Octavian circled around each other seeking ultimate power in the Roman Empire. The issue was decided at Actium.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus was completing his studies at Apollonia (now in Albania) when word came that his great uncle and patron had been murdered in the Senate chamber by conspirators led by Cassius and Brutus. He returned home and found he had been adopted as son and heir by Caesar in the elder’s will. Thus began a fateful struggle with his rival Marc Antony that would last over a decade. Antony’s enemies in the Senate led by Cicero soon allied themselves with Octavian, made the youth a Senator and then Consul, and forced Antony to withdraw with his forces into Gaul which is present day France.

Octavian, ever the opportunist, turned on his Senate allies, achieved a truce with Antony, and with him and Lepidus, in bloody reprisals, destroyed their Senate enemies and divided the western reaches of the Empire as the so-called Second Triumvirate (the first being an informal agreement with Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar).

United, Antony and Octavian in 42 BCE crossed the Adriatic and defeated Cassius and Brutus, the latter two committing suicide. Antony took the east, Octavian, the west, which included, for all practical purposes, the ostensibly neutral Italy. But in possession of the capitol and the home territories, powerful armies loyal to him and the memory of his uncle, and the navy, Octavian gradually packed the Senate with his allies, isolated Antony and won the support of the people of Rome.

Aided by his old school chum and military genius, Marcus Agrippa, Octavian achieved military victories in Illyricum and Dalmatia (modern Slovenia and Croatia) which enhanced his prestige.

When, in 32, Antony divorced the younger man’s sister Octavia to marry Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, the break between the two was complete. Octavian declared war on Cleopatra, and she and Antony moved their forces to the western coast of Greece to block any eastern moves by Octavian. The latter, however, had more and better ships and a much more powerful army. He bottled up the forces of the two lovers in the Gulf of Arta and on the 2nd of September 31 BCE when they came out from Actium to contest the day, he defeated them.

At first it seemed Antony might win. Leaving Cleopatra with 60 ships in reserve, Antony attempted to turn Octavian’s left flank commanded by Agrippa, but in a violent struggle, Agrippa barely prevailed. Antony’s center collapsed and fled back into the Bay. In desperation, Antony and Cleopatra escaped, fled back to Egypt. Octavian pursued and defeated them at Alexandria. They committed suicide and Octavian, his path to power cleared, took his great uncle’s place. Until his death in the year 14 CE he was, Augustus Caesar, undisputed ruler of Rome and its empire.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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